You Will Feel Better

You will feel better. Life always gets better. I say this because people often wait to be told they can feel something before they allow themselves to feel it. I learned this when I was going through chemotherapy. My life was rough, and I was angry, and while in a support group, I said, “I shouldn’t be angry, I should be grateful for being alive.” An older gentleman said to me, “No, if you are angry, be angry. You have every right to be angry. If I were you, I would be angry too.” This meant a lot to me in that moment, and has served me ever since.

If you have been waiting for someone to tell you it is okay to have hope, I want you to know that it is okay to have hope. One day, your pain will go away, and everything about your day will be great.

It Is Going To Be Okay

Escaping your pain is not a light switch; you can’t just will it away. Anyone who has experienced mind-shattering pain knows this, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a charlatan. Instead of trying to flip an imaginary switch in your brain, you must train to live better days. This means integrating as many positive behaviors into your life as possible.

When I provide pain management massage, I help my clients understand their pain, remind them that life is bright and delightful, and that their most powerful tool is hope. When you know that everything is going to be okay, you will always have the might to push past every obstacle.

Hope, perseverance, and grit are developed over time. We gain these traits when faced with a challenge. We must experience some kind of resistance to develop the ability to push forward. Positivity is the best force you can apply to push back against hardship. It is easy to be bitter and angry when we experience pain. When you are hurting, hunt for the sweetness of existence, search for the spectacular, and try to smile and laugh. Laughter is often the best medicine.

How we feel in the moment is shaped by how we reacted to past experiences. The way you respond to the pain of today shapes how you will respond in the future. Change happens every second of the day, which is why New Year’s resolutions are so silly. If you can only commit to change for one day, you will be unable to remain committed. If you want a New Year’s resolution to stick or provide meaningful value, it needs to be about having more discipline.

Pain relief is achieved through the creation and maintenance of healthy patterns. While surgeries sometimes help, their value depends on your perception and the hope in your heart. If you think it might work, it probably won’t. This is because pain is in your brain, not your knee, wrist, or other body part. You have to believe it will be transformative, and even then, it might still not work.

Surgeries introduce new pain, which further supports a pattern of discomfort. They steal you away from activities that may ordinarily enrich your existence, and as a byproduct, cause depression, a feeling of isolation, or disappointment, which may inhibit the pain-reducing effectiveness of the treatment. Most people don’t even know the effectiveness of the surgeries suggested to them. Their doctor gives them a number or a vague description of the surgery’s success rate, sometimes with a dire warning if the surgery is not performed.

Fear, stress, and anxiety magnify our perception of pain, and hope can reduce it. Believing the surgery is going to help the pain go away can reduce the discomfort, but fearing the operation can make it worse.

People often seek out drastic measures to reduce their pain instead of committing to baby steps. This is why they tend to fail. Effective pain management is first established on the micro level. Do something small and easily manageable, an activity that is so easy it requires almost no effort to do. Create a circumstance that can’t fail, so you can begin building your successes. While it might not seem like much, it is a raindrop, and over time, these raindrops will become a storm that will flood your life with success and safety.

In a massage, I create these micro patterns by encouraging sensations that feel good. While most massages address an area once and move on, I will provide peace to that area at least three times. When the technique is first performed, your mind asks, “Will this feel good?” Then it experiences a sensation that does feel good. Then I give that area a break; this is to provide the central nervous system a palate cleanser, so that its perception of that area can reset. When I return to perform the techniques again, your mind says, “I think this is going to feel good.” Then it does. Once again, I give it a break and then return. On this pass, the mind says, “Yes, this is going to feel good.” Once the brain thinks this, it indicates that we have created a pattern of safety, peace, and pleasure. Using the same approach three times in an area creates a micro-pattern, which results in a positive neurotag.

Neurotags are important because they are what the brain uses to determine whether to create pain. The more positive neurotags your brain can access, the greater the likelihood it will refrain from creating pain.

To help my clients, I encourage them to schedule their appointments in advance. This is important because it offers them hope by reminding them that peace, comfort, and ease are right around the corner, especially when their pain begins to return. An ounce of hope goes a long way; sometimes knowing that you are about to receive a massage in a few days can reduce the pain of today.

Having your massage on the schedule helps maintain a pattern. Our lives are busy, and it is difficult to squeeze in anything at the last minute. If pain management is a priority, you will have to build your massage sessions into your routine. If you don’t, you will forget about them, and it will begin to erode your positive patterns.

Scheduling your massage sessions in advance allows you to transform the micro-patterns of each session into macro-patterns. As a result, this will increase the likelihood that your brain uses the positive neurotags over the older negative ones.

Remember, pain management is not a light switch. It is a pattern of safety developed over time. You have to choose a positive path each second, create patterns of peace, and live with hope. If you are in pain and need help, reach out to me. I know how it feels to live in agony, and to escape it. Let me serve as your lighthouse at the edge of the sea, guiding you away from your storm of suffering. I will show you how to live with hope, so you can make the most of your moments and feel delightfully alive.